Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

By the Wednesday morning, our pace had slowed a little bit. A lot of people had already left for home, and the ones of us who were left were spending our time a little more leisurely than over the weekend. After getting up and doing the normal morning stuff, Kevin and I were on our way to the Magic Kingdom. When we arrived, we once again parked in the Minnie lot. When we got to the front gate, we got in touch with Charlotte who said that she, Tracy and Jack were on the boardwalk along the Rivers of America, and were waiting to catch the Tiana's Showboat Jubilee show that was starting soon. So we went over to meet them, and got our morning hugs from Charlotte as soon as we arrived. Boy, I miss those hugs when I don't see her! haha

After a little while of hanging out, Kevin decided that he wanted a pre-lunch snack, so he ran over to a nearby cart and grabbed a corn dog, and proceeded to make yummy noises while he ate it just to gross me out! haha Just before the show, we ended up staking out a little bit larger spot along the boardwalk toward the end where Splash Mountain is. Soon the show started, and having not seen the movie, I thought it was ok for what it was.

The singing and dancing parts were nice, but the part where they put choir robes on all the park guests and had them dance around, well, that was tacky as hell and I can't believe that they can get away with that. But it was a pretty good show regardless.

After the show, Charlotte said that she was going to head out and do her own thing for a while, so we said goodbye, and Kevin, Tracy, Jack and I decided to take a ride on the Jungle Cruise. The guide was average, which seems to be the norm these days instead of the exception. I think it would also help to get new sound systems on the boats because you can barely understand what the skippers are saying sometimes.

When we were done, we all decided to grab a bite for lunch in Pecos Bill's, a place where I had only ever eaten once before. I ended up with a burger and fries, and loaded up on toppings from the almost salad bar sized topping bar, which included cheese sauce. So of course, I got a couple of cups of cheese sauce for the fries :-) We sat in a little covered outdoor area to eat, and I enjoyed the meal much more than my last meal there.

With lunch complete, Tracy and Jack said that they had time for one more ride before they had to leave, so they chose Pirates since it was nearby. There was much less line this time, and we were on basically as soon as we walked up. Once the ride was done, we all slowly walked out toward the hub, and paused for some goodbye hugs once we reached the bridge to the Crystal Palace.

After a sad wave goodbye, Kevin and I made our way across the hub and headed off into Tomorrowland as Tracy and Jack made their way out of the park.

When we arrived in Tomorrowland, I said that while we were there, I wanted to check Merchant of Venus to see if they had any of the Star Wars Mr. Potato Heads that I didn't have. Once I started looking, they had two that I didn't have! I grabbed a CM and asked if they had the Mashter Yoda Potato Head in their stock room, so she went to check, but ultimately didn't find one. Oh well...one more reason to buy more Potato Heads in the future! haha I also ended up buying two buttons that say "Oh Boy!" when you press them, as an inside joke between Catherine, Jack M. and I!

Our next stop was Space Mountain since there wasn't too much line. We got to check out a few of the interactive games in the queue, but the line really moves too fast to play anything all the way through. We kept walking by them and picking up other people's games once they moved, and then had to leave them behind ourselves. It's an interesting concept, but not one that seemed to work too well given the ride's capacity. The ride was nice, as usual, and when we exited, we noticed a comfy looking blue couch in the unload area.

So, being our goofy selves, we plopped ourselves on it and handed the camera to another guest so they could take our picture just chillin' in Space Mountain.

On the way out, we perused the arcade, and I decided to try my hand at playing the Road Trip game they had. You pressed a plunger, a wheel spun around, and you had to make the wheel stop on point values that equalled certain amounts to move on to the next level.

I lost on my first attempt, but when Kevin played, he made it almost to the end of the game, only losing in the last round. If he'd won, he would have won a Nintendo DS...THAT would have been nice!

After our time in the arcade, we hopped across the street and rode Buzz, then decided to make our way over to the Studios to see the Osborne Lights. We ended up taking the resort monorail back to the TTC, and found our car easily. On the way out, Kevin said that he wanted to stop at the Hess station to see if he could pick up some more batteries for his camera.

Luckily, they had a good selection of batteries, so he grabbed the ones he needed, and we both grabbed drinks for the road. After another quick drive, we made our way into the Studios.

Since we needed to kill a little bit of time before the Osborne Lights were lit, we meandered through One Man's Dream, and caught the movie at the end. On the way out, we decided to head over and catch Muppet*Vision 4D since neither of us had seen it yet this trip. Along the way, we spotted a custodial CM drawing Disney characters on the sidewalk using only a broom and a bucket of water.

It was pretty cool to watch since the drawings were so big, yet she was doing it basically perfectly with every swipe of the broom! After a quick stop in Lights! Motors! Toilets!, we headed into Muppet*Vision and caught the show.

Afterward, Kevin said that he wanted to take a look inside Muppet Stuff to see if there were any new Muppet shirts that he might want to get. So we browsed for a while, but ultimately neither of us bought anything. With just a few more minutes to kill, I said that I'd like to check Tattoine Traders to see if they had the Mashter Yoda Mr. Potato Head that I was looking for. I looked around, and even after asking a CM to check the stock room for me, they still didn't have any.

Kevin being silly in Tattoine Traders

I think the plaid shorts and Epcot shirt were in the movie...right?

The Osborne Lights were on in full force by the time we were done, so we slowly strolled through the entire display, all the while trying to spot the Halloween cat hidden in the display.

Light up elves coming out of the subway

My Christmas wouldn't be complete without this sight every year

After the better part of half an hour worth of looking around, we still hadn't run across the cat, so we set out on a more stringent search. Kevin headed out while I stayed put on New York Street and got on my phone, trying to find a web page that told the whereabouts of the cat. Eventually I found one, and made my way to where the cat could be seen. It was really tricky this year! It was on top of a building on one side of the street, but could only be seen from the very far edge of the opposite sidewalk. After a few minutes of searching for Kevin, I found him headed back onto New York Street, so I pointed it out to him. With the cat found, we decided to go ahead and leave, and grab something for dinner offsite.

As we left, we decided to go to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner since it was nearby in the Crossroads shopping center, and since we had heard Kim and Rob talk highly of it.

When we entered the restaurant, there was a really long salad bar full of all kinds of veggies and toppings, as well as a bunch of pre-mixed salads and pastas. Apparently you only get one pass through the salad bar since we only got one plate, and it was sort of blocked off at the end. Past that, there were soups, flatbreads and desserts, all of which were fantastic. I particularly loved the Asian ginger soup that they had...I could have drank a gallon of it if I hadn't already been so full! haha We hung around for quite a while, and kept going back for more soups and flatbreads :-)

The original plan had been to try and hit the Magic Kingdom after dinner, but by the time we were ready to leave, it was a little too late to make the drive, get into the park and see much of anything before it closed for the night. So we just decided to head back to the hotel and make an early night of it.